Piero Di Cosimo: Visions Beautiful and Strange

Inverting rules with obvious relish, Florentine artist Piero di Cosimo (1462and#150;1522) is known todayand#151;as he was in his own timeand#151;for his highly personal visual language, one capable of generating images of the most mesmerizing oddity. In this book, Dennis Geronimus overcomes the scarcity of information about the artistand#8217;s life and worksand#151;only one of the nearly sixty known works by Piero is actually signed and datedand#151;and pieces together from extensive archival research the most complete and accurate account of Pieroand#8217;s life and career ever written.

Unfettered imagination was the sign under which Piero exercised his pictorial invention, and yet the complicated artist was also a product of his culture. The book fills gaps in the artistand#8217;s biography and provides intensive analysis of Pieroand#8217;s protean imagery, discusses his various patrons and commissions, and lists his extant, lost, and uncertainly attributed works.

"This book . . . will serve as a catalyst for the reconsideration of many artists and works of art produced in Florence around 1500. Geronimus's insights . . . will be both a challenge and an example for other scholars in the field . . ."and#8212;Jean Cadogan, Sixteenth Century Journal

Dennis Geronimus is assistant professor of Italian Renaissance art, Department of Art History, New York University.